Learning Statistics Through Scripting

In looking at the problem sets in Statistics, it occurred to me that you can simply script the solutions in your favorite language for not only learning the scripting language, but for reinforcing Statistics.  Many scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby) have undoubtedly some third party charting tools, and then there's also the famous RRDTool.  For PHP specifically, I came across these gorgeous screen shots of pChart: http://pchart.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php?ID=25.  A close friend of mine mentioned that JpGraph was better (http://jpgraph.net)

For Windows die-hards, I'm sure there's a way to use PowerShell and either third party .NET charting programs or simply commandeer Excel to output the charts.  This could also be done through the older VBScript or even famous underground swiss-army knife of tools used in IIS called LogParser with the output of CHART.  I came across this blog on the topic:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carloc/archive/2008/08/07/charting-with-logparser.aspx

For Java, long ago my friend in Japan mentioned JFreeChart. 

Some other impressive ones were:

• AmChart, which have interactive charts in Flash or Silverlight.  
• Open Flash Chart. 
• PHP/SWF Charts - http://www.maani.us/charts/index.php
• Fusion Charts (http://www.fusioncharts.com/free/) support for jQuery and Joomla
• flot (http://code.google.com/p/flot/) - pure jQuery (javascript client)